Oleg Tinkov, the owner of Tinkoff Credit Systems, responded to the media hype around a customer who changed the fine print in his credit card agreement.

The highly popular story about a Russian man who had changed the fine print in his credit card agreement and is now suing the bank, developed further today as the bank's owner weighed in.Oleg Tinkov. Photo from his Twitter.
Oleg Tinkov, the head of Tinkoff Credit Systems bank (he also holds a 61% stake in the company) commented on the story via Twitter:

"With regards to the man from voronezh, our lawyers say that he'll be awarded not 24 million but a whole 4-year sentence for fraud. now it's the matter of principle for @tcsbank."

"It's time to stop this 'diamond dream' and daydreams about 24 million. Nobody will win anything from us, that's just a dream to get rich."

"Oh my god, what a country! You treat fraudsters as heroes," he also ranted on Twitter, referring to Russia.

Russian media outlet RIA Voronezh, which was first to break the story yesterday, quoted the bank as stating that the incident happened due to a technical failure and the amount of the lawsuit totaled just 900,000 Russian rubles (about $27,000), not 24 million rubles.

The lawyers on the plaintiff's side noted that the 24-million-ruble figure was the amount of the compensation they had asked for to settle the case before going to court. The amount being disputed was reduced to avoid much higher judiciary fees, which would have been triggered if the figure passed the 1-million-ruble mark. They noted that if they were to win this case, they would follow this suit with a claim for a larger amount and would expect an "automatic" victory.

Agarkov and his lawyers were also disappointed to see that the bank representatives publicly called Agarkov a fraudster and expect both the bank and Tinkov to apologize for the allegations.

"We're surprised that a person was accused in a felony and even provided with his alleged jail term without a decision from a court," said Dmitry Mikhalevich, Agarkov's lawyer.

And if the bank doesn't retract its accusatory statement, it might have another lawsuit on its hands, they warned. "It's courts that still pass judgments in Russia, not bankers," said the lawyer.

Dmitry Agarkov (his surname was previously reported by Russian Media as Alexeev for privacy reasons), from Voronezh, Russian Federation, is hoping to win 24 million Russian rubles (about $727,000) in compensation after he handcrafted a new agreement for a credit card offer sent to him in the mail, much like the offers Americans receive daily fromVisa (NYSE:V), Mastercard(NYSE:MA), and American Express (NYSE:AXP). Agarkov's re-written agreement was signed and recognized by the bank.